


i'll take what's broken and make it whole

by Anonymous



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, BAMF Niki | Nihachu, Doomsday, Execution, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Niki | Nihachu-centric, Older Sibling Niki | Nihachu, Ranboo Deserves A Hug, Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), help my boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28646838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Niki was calm and sweet until she wasn't.Everyone finds out the hard way.
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & Ranboo
Comments: 30
Kudos: 356
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i spedran this and you can tell

Niki considered herself fair and level-headed. Her morals and faith in people were the only things guiding her through all of these wars and conflicts. That and also her clear head. Because, and she found this out quickly, wherever Wilbur saw reason, she saw insanity. Maybe that was what got them through their Pogtopia days.

But now, hours after Tommy had come back, after Ranboo had been exposed, after all of the pain and hurt and suffering her country and friends had gone through, Niki had snapped. Just like a twig.

No, she was _done_ with everything. She was done with the wars and the fighting and the backstabbing. The flimsy alliances and the lies that spewed so easily from the mouths of these people. They were all the same. Schlatt, Tubbo, Tommy, Wilbur. All expecting her to come to them with open arms, all of them _using_ her as a means to their ends. Who could she trust other than herself? What else was there in her home to fight for?

Was it even her home anymore?

And she thought about her secret city. The sanctuary she was building, far, far away and felt a pang of longing in her chest. Felt a deep ache as darkness clouded her judgement. There was always a place in this world for her. There was a place for her to live in until she grew old and withered. 

She couldn’t possibly give that up.

So maybe that was why she stood in a cosy log cabin while Technoblade himself tightened the straps of her netherite chestplate.

She nodded thanks to him, jamming her helmet onto her head. Her hair was braided and coiled around the base of her skull, pinned and locked tightly away. She’d offered to do Techno’s, but he’d waved her off with something terse shining in his eyes.

Dream was late. He’d disappeared at some point the previous night and hadn’t returned since. They had an hour before they had to move.

“You remember everythin’ I taught you, don’t you?” Techno asked gruffly.

Niki nodded, sliding a sword into her belt and carefully rearranging the crossbow bolts in her arsenal. “Everything,” she murmured.

When the time came, Niki would not go down without a fight.

The opening of a door startled them both. Dream walked in, looking oddly smug about something or another. He wouldn’t tell them. Unsurprising. Dream kept things close to his chest. His face, his secrets, his allyships. “Ready to go?” he asked jovially, only met with twin, icy stares. He didn’t look perturbed. “It’s a little earlier, but Punz said that they’d be assembled by now.” He flashed a grin at them. “Ready and waiting.”

Niki’s grip on crossbow tightened for a second.

_What am I doing?_

The right thing.

“Are the horses ready?” and her voice was clipped and clear and cold.

Dream nodded affirmative. Techno grunted, beginning to walk out. He carried a bag that Niki knew was filled with wither skulls. She had another that held soul sand. “Then we’re leavin’.” Techno’s voice held no room for argument.

Dream winked at Niki. There was nothing warm in his eyes and she had to repress her shudder. “There’s a surprise waiting for us back at L’Manberg.”

Staring straight ahead, Niki gave her answer stiffly as she walked out the door. “I can’t wait.”

* * *

Niki felt nothing.

She felt nothing as she stared down the enemy. In her hands, a black wither skull. Beneath them was rubble from TNT and fireworks that Techno and Dream loved so much. Tommy had locked eyes with her at some point and then looked away.

She dropped the skull and clashed swords with Karl who’d dared come up, lips bared in a snarl as she pushed him back mercilessly. Fear flashed in his eyes as she swung right at his neck. He barely managed to dart away, scrambling back desperately and running to the safety of the crowd.

She set her eyes on Quackity next, daring him to come closer. He didn’t. But he would. All in due time.

Her job was to keep everyone away from Techno with Dream. To protect him as he lay waste to her former home.

Maybe she should’ve felt something at the chaos. The destruction. The broken look in Eret’s eyes. The betrayal in Fundy’s. Tommy and Tubbo staring at her as if she were a stranger and not the woman who’d sheltered them in her bakery with sweet pastries and warm hugs all those months ago.

Dream appeared by her side, nearly startling her. “Stay here. Remember that surprise I was talking about?”

Niki didn’t acknowledge him, glowering at the opposition with her sword raised as the air was filled with the odour of gunpowder. Explosives began to rain down and distantly, she heard the chuckling of a man who’d _finally_ gotten back what he’d sought for so long.

She met Tubbo’s eyes once. He mouthed a single word. ‘ _Why?’_

Maybe he would never understand the rage she felt all those times these citizens had failed each other. All those times these citizens had failed her.

Standing atop the obsidian tower, Niki gazed down at the assembled crowd, the light breeze tickling her face. Somewhere, she heard Phil grunting, locked into battle with someone she no longer cared about. Niki felt free up here. Free of whatever was holding her down to this earth. Free of shackles and promises she no longer had to keep. 

Well. There was one. A very important one. But he wasn’t here, so she didn’t need to keep an eye on him.

He wasn’t here, that is, until he was.

Everyone heard Dream whoop, a high, shrill sound filled with ecstasy and morbid cheer. Only a few bothered to look at him. Those who did let out a gasp or turned to their friends who also looked. A wave of sorts. And then everyone but her was watching Dream. Techno let out a surprised little snort. It didn’t sound happy. So Niki turned.

And immediately wished she hadn’t.

“Ranboo,” she whispered, voice failing her at the sight. Certainly, there was no other reaction to someone seeing their little brother, bruised and bloodied and burned (water burns no doubt), arms tied behind his back and kneeling on the ground only ten feet in front of her. Dream stood behind, one gloved hand firmly grasping the back of his dress shirt (where did his jacket go?), the other hand gripping an axe that was pointed at Ranboo’s throat.

He was smiling under the mask. She knew it.

“What the _hell_ , Dream?” someone yelled out. Sapnap. The only one brave enough to speak against a god.

Dream faltered for only a second, but it was a second too long of weakness. Everyone had seen it. “What’s this?” Niki asked, and her voice did not shake.

He glanced over at her, apprehensive, almost nervous. “Ranboo is a traitor to this country. And I thought we could continue our age-old tradition of dealing with traitors while L’Manberg still…” he stared down at the crater meaningfully, “exists,” he finished.

 _Execution,_ her mind hissed at her. Tommy went pale. “Hey!” he roared up at Dream. “Hey, we don’t do that anymore! You-you let him go right now!” Tubbo’s face was unreadable. Quackity looked pleased.

Niki…Niki didn’t know what to think.

Her little brother, standing up there, looking down at his ~~former~~ friends, trembling so hard that Dream had to get a better grip on his shirt to hold him still, eyes filling with tears that he was rapidly blinking away. Right. Tears were water. And he was already in pain. She could tell easily.

Dream laughed, loud and breathy and definitely not genuine. “I don’t recall any laws saying that this isn’t allowed, Tommy. And even if I did, that’s all gone now.” Tommy flushed angrily, standing up straighter.

“Let Ranboo go, you green prick!”

“Tommy!” Niki snapped, and he immediately turned to her, eyes boring furious holes into her skull.

Oh she was in for it now. “That’s your brother!” At that, Ranboo let out a choked little sob. She ignored it, watching Tommy carefully, taking out her crossbow slowly. A decision was made in that second. “Are you just going to _stand_ there and watch him die?”

“No,” she said, clearly, loudly. Niki locked eyes with Dream. “I’ll do it myself.”

Ranboo twisted in Dream’s hold, trying to meet her eyes (he hated eye contact) and shook his head quickly, his shaking getting worse. There were tears on his face now. They burned. She knew that. She was hurting him. She was hurting her little brother.

 _‘Please,’_ he mouthed, looking so similar to how he did when they were younger.

_(It was a long time ago. Niki and Ranboo used to live in a little village, in their own house while also being cared for by the other villagers. That day, cold and dark and stormy outside, Ranboo was lying on his sister’s lap (he was afraid of lightning), staring at the flickering flames while she mended her jumper with thread._

_“Am I a freak, Niki?” he’d asked, out of the blue._

_She’d blinked twice and looked down at him, abandoning her work to stroke the hair from his eyes. “Are those kids bothering you again?” And she knew immediately, from the way his green and red eyes flickered away from her intense stare, that she was right. “Did they use the water again?” Niki could remember the rage in her heart when she caught word of the kids flicking water at Ranboo, intentionally burning him. She’d found him after she had tended to her brother, and_ dealt _with them accordingly._

_Ranboo shook his head furiously. “No! No, no, they didn’t. They just…called me names and stuff.” He rolled off her lap and sat up, hunched over. He was already so tall, even at thirteen years old. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he mumbled, and Niki’s heart broke._

_She leaned forward and gently caught his hand in her own, rubbing it gently. “You’re not, Ranboo. You look a little different and you need different things to other people, but you’re a wonderful person and that’s something they can’t say about themselves.”_

_Ranboo’s lip wobbled when he turned back to her. “I mean-I—I want to have friends, Niki,” he whispered, voice breaking. Niki sucked in a sharp breath and the kid took it as a sign of offense, immediately flinching away and curling in on himself. “Not that you’re bad!” he stammered, eyes blown wide. “You’re great, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”_

_“Breathe,” Niki ordered, sitting up on her haunches with her hands held up in a placating manner. Ranboo nodded and sucked in a deep breath, releasing it shakily. “Again.”_

_Eventually, Ranboo had calmed and the tears had dried enough for him to collapse in Niki’s arms. “I’m sorry,” he breathed into her shoulder._

_She rubbed his back, rocking him back and forth. “You’ve nothing to apologise for. One day you’ll make good friends, Ranboo. People who treat you well. I promise on my life.”)_

But that was long ago, and far away.

Dream stared at her, open-mouthed in shock. “Wait, seriously?” She nodded. A sound that was more enderman than human left Ranboo, a defeated, garbled chirp. Dream grabbed his hair and forced him to look up. He yelped as he did.

“Whenever you’re ready, Niki,” Dream said. “Techno, could you please deal with anyone who tries to interfere.” A sneer entered his voice. “Not that anyone will.”

Niki loaded her crossbow and stared into those eyes that she’d grown to love, the eyes that everyone was afraid of. The split colours, the lanky limbs and the wiry frame. The face that looked devastated, the body that shook visibly, visible even from where she stood.

“Niki!” Tubbo cried. “Niki please, don’t do this!”

Dream cackled. “Place your bets. Will he drop a pearl?”

Ranboo tried wrenching his arms away, the horror on his face nearly twisted something painfully in her gut. “N-no, I don’t I did-didn’t mean t-to I swe-swear!” He thrashed about and Dream brought the axe closer, making it dig into his neck. “ _I don-don’t want to d-die!_ ” he screeched, distorted. Dream winced. Niki steeled herself.

“I am not sorry for this,” she announced. Ranboo’s face crumpled into a sob as he stopped struggling against Dream, the fight leaving him entirely. She aimed her crossbow carefully, not wanting to hit the wrong person. The arrows were tipped with a reinforced harming potion.

She took a breath in. Heard a shout from below. Fundy, she realised, telling her to think about this. What was there left to think about?

As she pulled the trigger, she let out that breath. Her brother’s eyes squeezed shut. Dream smiled through the mask. Techno watched on impassively, because he knew what would happen the moment she volunteered.

Ranboo hit the obsidian with a strangled groan. Dream cried out, the arrow stuck in his side, its poison working its way through his system. He collapsed.

Niki lowered the crossbow to a stunned silence and stalked over, stepping around Ranboo and deciding to deal with him later. But first, the bastard.

She drew her sword and placed the tip in a chink in Dream’s armour, just below his ribs. “Wa-wait,” he muttered.

Niki did not wait. She pushed the sword in, drawing a groan of pain from him. It chilled her very core, but she kept going. “How _dare_ you?” she hissed. “You have taken so much from me. You took my country and my people and my friends.” Dream had begun to claw at the blade, convulsing. This death was agonisingly slow. “You have taken innocence and _crushed_ it beneath your boots. And you stand here and smile. I will not let you.”

“Holy shit.” She recognised that to be Eret. She smiled faintly.

“You have taken almost everything away from me. But I will not let you take my family.” Now impaled, Dream could only gasp and wheeze for breath that wouldn’t come. Niki stood back and left the sword there. “You took from us, so I will take something of yours.” And rearing a foot back, she kicked him into the crater below where TNT was still exploding. He fell. Down, down, down, into the mass of stone and concrete and splintered wood. And she watched his fall. She watched and she smiled hollowly.

She then remembered that there were other, pressing issues.

“Ni-Niki,” Ranboo stuttered, terror in his face. She dropped down behind him and cut him free of the rope binding his hands.

“I’m so sorry,” she begun. Words couldn’t begin to describe how badly she’d fucked up on this one. “Oh Dragon, Ranboo I’m so _sorry!”_ She pulled him into a tight hug. His hands grasped the back of her shirt and didn’t let go as he buried his face in her shoulder and cried. Niki rocked him a little, humming a little lullaby, the one from when they were kids, under her breath in hopes of calming him down. “Breathe, Boo. Come on. You can breathe.”

He was trying. He was trying so hard. With whispered encouragement, he was doing the best he could.

Technoblade stepped into her field of vision, something odd in his face. “So…the withers?”

And she looked around at the place she once called home, the place that had destroyed herself and everyone she’d ever loved, the place that had ripped her apart from her core and had then welded those pieces back together with the flame of rage, and nodded, ice in her veins as she held her little brother high above the citizens she loved.

“Burn it all to the ground,” she whispered, and she didn’t care if that made her a traitor.


	2. do YOU wanna read more fics from ME???

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hopefully i don't regret this later

Hello, hello, hello to everyone reading this message! While this isn’t necessarily a chapter, it does lead into more reading material by yours truly.

So the reason I decided to go anonymous was so my actual account on this site wouldn’t be linked to these fics. I have an Aesthetic, guys. I will not sacrifice that Aesthetic for block men. HOWEVER that does mean that no one can read other stuff I’ve written, which apparently people want??

So, below I’ve included links to other fics I’ve written in order from first to last. Some are good, some aren’t, and basically I really like the hurt/comfort trope but can you blame me??

You will also notice that I enjoy switching it up. I love Villain!Schlatt and Dad!Schlatt equally and frankly, no one can stop me.

So uh. Enjoy I guess?

BTW: I’m copy-pasting this exact text for all of the announcements on all the fics because I am a lazy hoe. That is all.

['low, keep you head, keep your head low'](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994845)

a finished fic series set in Manberg with schlatt as the villain

['when the world's at stake, there are lives to save'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27790258/chapters/68033464)

featuring dadschlatt and quackity whump, as well as tubbo being the younger brother and villain wilbur

['isn't it lovely, all alone?'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28829736/chapters/70712247)

ranboo is put into prison and has a Bad Time

also more big sister niki

['and the earth said she loved them, because they are love'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29286312)

the fic that made even my stone cold heart cry a lil bit as i wrote it. unsympathetic anarchists and the goddess of the earth being the only cool adult ever

**Author's Note:**

> after the festival my brain legit went 'i want ranboo angst but also niki fucking dream up' and this was born  
> anyway, please give me validation for my lukewarm ideas in the comments, thanks


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